


It's an Investment

by Luminous_Bluebell



Series: Actual Walking Disaster Children [2]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Gen, Modern AU, really it's only shippy if you squint, trans boy Jack Kelly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 11:44:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4058770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luminous_Bluebell/pseuds/Luminous_Bluebell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t that Jack said anything about it, necessarily. More that he didn’t say anything. He was talking less than usual, and smoking more, and crossing his arms over his chest more often than not, and just being really… twitchy. It was a little concerning. Not that David would pry or anything. If Jack didn’t want to say anything that was certainly his right it just… it was weird. Jack was normally all tough guy charm and bravado, the kind of guy who could sell water to a fish and yet.... Here he was, leaning with his back against a wall, hunched over as though he was bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's an Investment

**Author's Note:**

> for tumblr user [officialjackkelly](http://officialjackkelly.tumblr.com/), who let me flail around while screaming about Trans Boy Jack Kelly being So Very Canon.
> 
> crossposted on my [tumblr](http://transboyjackkelly.tumblr.com/post/120485436040/for-officialjackkelly-who-let-me-flail-around)

     It wasn’t that Jack _said_ anything about it, necessarily. More that he _didn’t_ say anything. He was talking less than usual, and smoking more, and crossing his arms over his chest more often than not, and just being really… twitchy.

     It was a little concerning. Not that David would _pry_ or anything. If Jack didn’t want to say anything that was certainly his right it just… it was weird. Jack was normally all tough guy charm and bravado, the kind of guy who could sell water to a tuna fish and yet -

     Here he was, leaning with his back against a wall, hunched over as though he was bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders.

     Katherine had been the one to make the joke, and really. It was a reference. But it still got to him.

     “So, what’s your story, Jack Kelly? If that is your real name...” Really someone should have warned her, but everyone already just kind of knew that on days like this, you normally steered clear of things that could be twisted wrong.

     “That _is_ my name, ok? My name’s Jack Kelly, like I told you. Think I’m lyin’?”

     So there he was, hunched against the concrete wall like he was trying to disappear, and David would have approximately none of it.

     Well, he thought so at first, but then he remembered every single time he felt like begging the floor to swallow him whole, or praying that he could get sucked into some kind of portal that just sort of happened to blend in with a wall. It was hard to feel impatient with someone when you could sympathize on the anxiety front.

      Most of the day was a blur after that, getting from the club room to the tiny broom closet of a dorm that he shared with three other guys. Everything felt off, and he knew he was snippy and standoffish but he didn’t want anyone to _touch_ him, because then they’d know and they’d be just as horrified and grossed out as he was with just how wrong everything was.

     But David was also there, saying things that sounded like random nonsense, and it sounded so nice, so soothing. He nodded every now and again, made vague noises of agreement, just so he could keep hearing him talk. It was real nice. It made something loosen in his chest a bit, just how _there_ David was. Didn’t fix nothing though. He still felt weird. Kind of like when you try to do a freeze frame and the image superimposes on itself or when two TVs are on the same channel with a one-second delay happening between the two.

     It helped a little that David at least knew what was wrong. He didn’t have to fight so hard to be seen as who he was around David, well, not anymore anyway.

* * *

      After a few months of scrimping and saving and maybe cutting down on meals he probably shouldn’t have, David finally got it. It was hard keeping a straight face around Jack, especially when it meant that the guy wouldn’t feel so down all the time, and _especially_ since it would help Jack feel more … well, not _better_ about himself, but more comfortable. Yeah, that was the word. Comfortable. He could only imagine what that feeling must be like, to feel so unsettled all the time, but he’d seen Jack eyeing the bandages David kept around after he sprained his wrist and… well… David didn’t like that idea so much. He liked it even _less_ after he talked to Ilya from shul. Needless to say, he threw out the bandages. When Jack asked him about them, all casual like, he just mumbled about them smelling bad and that they were frayed or some other excuse. It was pretty likely.

     So now, a week into Jack’s weird “emotional malaise” as Sarah likes to call it, _now_ David can’t quite keep still. He’s probably made his bed twice in the last hour, and picked little scraps of paper off the floor until the room was literally spotless. And… the box? The lightweight cardboard box that’s sitting on the bed? The one that he’s waited on for weeks? He’s probably moved it like, twenty times or something, tryin’ to find the perfect placement for it as a surprise. In the end, Jack swings the door open and he gets startled, nearly chucking the thing in Jack’s face. If Jack hadn’t had amazing reflexes it probably would have hit him right in the nose, and wouldn’t that be unfortunate?

     Jack stares at the box like it’s a two-headed baby or something. “What’s this?”

     “Dunno.” It was a knee-jerk reaction, which, BAD. Davey you’re a terrible liar. “Your name’s on it though, so I figured it must be for you.”

     And huh, would you look at that? Sure enough, the shipping label read ‘Jack Kelly’ and their address, right down to the room number.

     Jack then directed his confused and slightly weirded out stare to David, who ended up having to play off his nervous fidgeting as fussing about schoolwork which, well… hopefully it didn’t seem to weird. It would be weirder to give in to the impulse to grin like a cat that got the cream and possibly giggle. Mature eighteen year olds did not _giggle_.

     With a sigh, Jack tossed the ‘mystery’ package onto the bed and rested his backpack and coat on the chair. It was almost frustrating to see Jack playing it off. He almost wanted to scream at him to _open the damn package, Kelly, for fuck’s sake_. But David wouldn’t normally care about weird and mysterious packages anonymously delivered to one Jack Kelly… well he would but it would be more nervousness than anticipation.

     So he tried to play it cool, casually did his homework at his desk… and if he glanced at Jack every now and then to see if he was gonna open the box, well, it’s not like he thought Jack would notice.

 

     “Alright,” Jack sighed and stretched. After an hour of math, David had almost entirely forgotten about the package, until he heard Jack pick it up. “Let’s see what we’ve got in here.”

     Suddenly that twisty feeling was back, only it wasn’t just bubbly anticipation. Had he crossed a line? Would it be weird? Oh hell what if Jack got pissed at him about it? Would Jack be pissed?

     He turned to look at Jack in what he hoped was casual curiosity and not _sheer unadulterated panic_. He’d lifted up one flap of the box and dug under the discreet packaging, his brow furrowed in concentration. It wasn’t until he heard that little flustered squawk that he knew he didn’t have any reason to worry. “Davey, what is this?”

     He had to keep looking at his math book, otherwise the grin he was fighting to keep out of his voice was gonna split his whole face in half. “What’s what?”

     “This.” Jack held up the black fabric, and while David hadn’t been _that_ convincing a liar, the acting class he took a few quarters back helped.

     “Well, it looks like some sort of shirt.” Jack gave him a Look. “Well, you’re the one who asked.”

     “I know it’s a _shirt_ , Davey, but _why_?”

     “What, why is it a shirt? That’s obviously how it was made. I mean, it’s got the arm holes and the one for your head to go through.”

     The dumbfounded silence was cute, but also exasperating. “Looks like it might be a little tight. Why don’t you try it on, see if it fits? I mean, a free shirt is a free shirt, right?”

     “Sure, why the hell not?”

     That was a little too easy to convince him, and still the nerves were there, balling up in his throat and at the pit of his stomach.

     He had to give himself over to laughter when Jack called out from the bathroom, his arms stuck over his head. “Davey? Help…” Even though he could only see Jack’s back from here, he could picture the sad puppy eyes Jack was probably making right now to complete “sad, desperate” look and it was hard not to think it ridiculous.

     “Yeah, yeah, yuk it up, but at least help a guy out before you bust a gut.”

     David calmed himself down just a bit, glancing back at the open tab on his laptop screen. “Alright, here.” He walked over, and apparently he and Jack had different ideas of how David was going to fix Jack’s dilemma.

     “Davey, man, just pull it off it’s not gonna-” David smoothed out the fabric, and with a few wiggles and one sharp tug, it went all the way on, “fit. Um, okay.”

     “You might have to uh,” David cleared his throat a little, “ _rearrange_ some stuff but I’m pretty sure that’s how it’s supposed to fit.”

     And really, for Jack it was just like fixing a thrice-damned sports bra (the one that he took off to try and get into the “shirt”… _He_ knew what it was). But… better. He looked in the mirror and he looked… well, _flat_. He wasn’t gonna cry. Nope. He was not. 

     A thought occurred to him then, as he put on the tee shirt he had bunched up and threw onto the sink. “Davey,” and really, he sounded like he was about to start scolding him. “Davey, you didn’t get this for me, did you?”

     “I might have, yeah.”

     “ _What the fuck?_ ”

     “Just…” He tried to not look smug, he really did, but not being smug was really hard. “Think of it as an investment.” And as cool as that was, Jack would not let him just leave it. No. He kept giving him the Look. He even had his arms crossed where he would normally, looking all awkward at the fact that there was nothing really _there_ right now. “Well, I mean, you weren’t gonna _say_ anything but I noticed you started tucking into yourself and the fact that you gotta put on like _twenty_ layers before you leave the house and the way you were looking at those bandages which, no man no way so I thought ‘what the hell? It’s not like it could _hurt_ right?’ and so I talked to Ilya and _they_ found a site and -”

     As soon as what David was saying really sunk in, Jack pulled him into a hug. The tightest hug he could manage which… ow. “Thanks, Davey.” And if Jack’s voice sounded rougher than usual and a little muffled from where he buried his face in the crook of David’s neck, well, no one was gonna mention that.


End file.
